Meetup Event: Goth Mall Crawl!

Yesterday our meetup group had our first Goth Mall Crawl.  I've never been a mall goth, and I was dying to find out what it was like!  No, seriously, I just thought it would be fun, and possibly nostalgic for anyone who had ever been a mall goth, only without all the angst.  Also I haven't been shopping with anyone besides Martin in ages, so it was perfect.

Anyway, while only four of us actually made it, we had a blast!  I knew both the others already, and one brought her 16-year-old daughter, who I have seen occasionally but haven't spent time with in a few years. We met at Hot Topic, and ended up spending probably an hour there, looking through everything (and I mean EVERY thing!) and trying things on.  I ended up with a bottle of awesome pink/blue spatter nail polish and two great pairs of shorts that had "Buy one, get one for $1" tags on them!  I was really lucky to find both in my size, as there was only one pair of each left, AND they were the only ones I liked. 

The Misfits shorts (I'm thinking of removing the back pockets so you can see the letters, it says "Misfits"):



The purple/black tie-dyed distressed shorts by LOVEsick, and the nail polish (which has a LOT more blue flecks in it than this pic does):

Then we had lunch, followed by a stroll around the rest of the donut-shaped mall.  I lost count of how many stores we actually went into; it really didn't matter because we were doing so much talking, anyway.  When we finally got back to Hot Topic, we'd been there for almost five hours... no wonder my feet hurt! 

The one thing we didn't do was take any pictures.  :-(  I guess we were too busy talking to care! 

Have you ever done the mall goth thing?  

Adventures in Eyeliner - GoodGoth to the Rescue!

This post actually started out as a rant.  However, it turned into something different, thanks to good communication and lots of determination.

It all started out when I ran out of liquid eyeliner in May.  I was using Hot Topic's Blackheart line, and I really liked it, so I wanted to get more.  However, I couldn't get to the mall right away, so I grabbed the tube of Milani eyeliner I'd bought but only used once; it was awful!  Seemed to take about six minutes to dry, so unless I kept my eyes scrunched almost shut while it dried, it smeared all over the top of my eye shadow.  I used it as lightly as possible during the week, then threw it out on Sunday before I went to the mall... two malls, as it turned out.

But guess what?  Hot Topic has discontinued their Blackheart makeup line, and there was no liquid eyeliner to be had there!  So I headed back to Sephora, where I had just purchased an eye shadow palette (more on that in another post).  However, they didn't have anything much in liquid liner, so I went downstairs to M.A.C.  They're pricey, but have a good reputation.  They had two types of liquid liner, one for thin lines, and the Penultimate Eye Liner, a pen-style liner which was supposed to be SO much more versatile than a brush applicator, with options for both thin and thicker lines; I picked that one, and walked out with a $20 (+ tax) liner instead of the $3 one I came for.  Problem solved?  Not even...

The Penultimate Eye Liner turned out to be the Penultimate Disaster.  It would only make very thin lines, it did not have any staying power and was gone under my eyes before the end of the day, and worst of all...  IT. WOULD. NOT. DRY.  Acckkk!!  After a week, I took it back to the store for a refund.  I decided to use just pencil until I could find something acceptable.  It didn't look right and didn't stay on particularly well, but at least I didn't look like I had two smeary black raccoon eyes!

Then I got an e-mail from GoodGoth.com advertising their "13% Off for Friday the 13th" sale.  I had found a liquid liner there that I liked awhile back, but they stopped carrying it when I tried to get more.  On the off chance that they had something else, I checked... and there it was again, Kleancolor's Hardcore Black Metallic Liquid Liner!!  For the same $20 (no tax, shipping included) that I had used to purchase a single liner from M.A.C., I got FIVE of these.  :-)

Nine days later... I finally received my order.  (They take anywhere from 2-9 business days to actually ship an order; I guess it depends on if they have it in stock or have to order it, but that's a bit long, if you ask me.)  I opened the box and happily put my liners away.  Next morning, I opened one and used it -- or tried to.  After several minutes of shaking and scraping inside the tube, I barely had anything on the brush.  It was either almost completely dried out or almost empty!  I tried all five tubes, and two of them were bad.  Arrrgghhh!!  At least I had three good ones, so I wasn't stranded again, but I was not a happy bat.

I checked GoodGoth's return/exchange policy, only to find that they don't allow returns OR exchanges on cosmetics "for health reasons".  In a total snit, I sent off an e-mail telling them that I was furious because I got defective items and couldn't exchange them, and that I was never going to buy from them again BUT I would be sure to tell all my friends about it.  After the weekend, I got a very nice e-mail from them saying that their policy is worded that way so people don't order makeup and then return it just because they don't like the color, or whatever.  But because I had received "defective" goods, they would be glad to exchange or refund, my choice.  Sweet!  I told them I'd love an exchange, and did I need to return the bad ones?  They replied that I did NOT have to return them (they took my word for it), and my replacements were already on their way!  Two days later, I had my package... and they didn't just send two replacements, they replaced my ENTIRE order!!  I now have EIGHT tubes of eye liner, which will probably last me for at least the rest of the year!  (And even if some of them turn out to be bad, I won't complain.)

So, true to my promise, I have now told my friends all about how GoodGoth.com came through for me when I totally did NOT expect it.  I guess the moral of the story is:  Don't give up, but do speak up!  If you never ask, the answer is always No.  If you DO ask, sometimes you get even more than you asked for!  :-)

July: "I'm SO Goth..."

"Steampunk is what happens when Victorian goths discover the color brown..."






Well, I'm not really into steampunk, but I love this photo and the wonderful outfits!!  (Is that guy wearing a dead bird???)  And I also happen to like brown...  ;-)

When You Don't See Me

 

"I don't exist when you don't see me

I don't exist when you're not here

What the eye don't see won't break the heart  

You can make believe when we're apart

But when you leave I disappear

When you don't see me."

One of my favorite songs is The Sisters of Mercy's 'When You Don't See Me'.  If I had heard it when I was a teen, it would have probably been my theme song.

I have been having an e-mail discussion with one of my goth friends about what is basically "social anxiety", in which we both confessed to having horrible anxiety after committing to attending something like a meetup, club or other public event, and we waffle back and forth right up until the last minute about whether to go or not.  What shocked me about this is that she is the last person I would have thought would have this problem; she is extremely friendly and outgoing, but she told me that she has to "warm up" to someone before she is really comfortable with them.  We are so alike in this respect that it's not funny.

I've always been pretty much of a loner.  As an only child, I grew up with a few other kids on the block to play with occasionally, but mostly I was on my own.  Being a year younger than the other kids in my grade, I spent my elementary school years mostly on the outside of the social circles.  I always had at least one real friend (versus just acquaintances) each year, but I spent the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades in three different schools, so I had to make ALL new acquaintances/friends in both 4th and 5th grades.  I always felt out of sync with everyone else, and buried myself in books that surrounded me with imaginary people whom I felt more comfortable with than I did with real ones.  When I wasn't with my own friends, I actually did feel invisible.

I lucked out in 7th grade, when I met the three other girls who would be my cronies all the way through high school.  But that ended at graduation, when three of us went to college in three different cities, and the fourth disappeared into oblivion.  After two years of college (where I found a boyfriend but no regular friends), I got my AA degree and went to work, which further distanced me from my two other friends, who were still getting their bachelor's degrees and living on campus.  All the women I worked with were much older (I was only 19) and either married or divorced, so even work wasn't a place where I met people I could relate to. 

After high school, I didn't have a circle of friends, or even a best friend, until I started taking belly dance classes.  That's also when I discovered my alter ego, "Lucresha the Bellydancer".  When I was in costume, I was a totally different person.  A few years later, I discovered my second alter ego, "Lucretia the Mary Kay Rep".  They kept me going through my 20s, 30s and into my 40s, until I stopped dancing professionally because I no longer had a group to dance with or a place to teach or practice, and became too busy with school and work and my new marriage to keep selling Mary Kay.  Eventually my MK and dance friends drifted away, and there was no one at work or school whom I really connected with on a personal level.  While we did belong to a couple of Renaissance Faire group and went to faires regularly, I frequently felt invisible there as well, especially after the faire closed for the day and we were all ourselves again for the evening.

This may sound somewhat like a sob story, but it really isn't.  I honestly have never felt a need for lots of friends, but I did get tired of having almost no one to talk to except my husband and son. However, I also realized that most of the friends I'd had over the years were only friends because we happened to be doing the same things at the same time in the same place; we weren't friends because we actually connected with each other in a personal way (except for Debbie, who is still a friend today).  When you REALLY need to talk to someone at 2am, it's nice to know there's someone who actually won't mind if you call.

I have made quite a few pagan friends in an online group I've been part of for years, but the problem there is distance.  None of us live in the same state, and two live in other countries!  It's hard to be close to someone when you never actually see them, and when most of your conversations are group-oriented, anyway.

When I joined the goth meetup group, this changed considerably.  I actually connected closely with three different people almost at once.  I was a bit leery at first about throwing myself wholeheartedly into it, just in case it didn't last, but that hasn't happened. Now I feel like I have real friends who understand me and are okay with my weirdness.  I still need my space, but that's not ALL I have anymore. And while I still feel invisible in certain places and with certain people, it's not as bad as it used to be, and it doesn't bother me nearly as much.  

Have you ever felt invisible?  How did/do you deal with it?

Death Guild and an Anniversary

Fourteen years ago yesterday, Martin and I got married at the Valhalla Renaissance Faire in South Lake Tahoe, CA. If you want more details (with pics), go to this post.

We started off on Monday night with a meetup at Death Guild, a weekly goth/industrial night in San Francisco at the DNA Lounge.  (Why they picked Monday nights for this is a puzzle that will trouble me to my grave!)  Almost all my favorite goth friends were there, including Wendy and Winter, and although I'd never heard most of the music before, there was some danceable stuff.

Here is a pic of me at the club:

 

Then yesterday, on the actual Day, it was sleeping until 9:30am (good heavens!!), then lazing around the house most of the day (except for going to the mall), followed by takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant, Tin Fu.  We ended the day by watching "Grimm" episodes that we taped but hadn't seen yet.  What could be more enjoyable???

Next year, though, we are going to P.A.R.T.Y. (hopefully) with a Renaissance/Goth-themed renewal of our vows at Valhalla!!  We've already starting making tentative plans, so stay tuned! 

A Goth Mom in Need

One of my best goth friends, Winter, has a sister-in-law named Kanena.  She is a single 20-something goth mom with a 5-year-old daughter, and until recently she was the main caregiver for her mother, who is dying of bone cancer.  But now Kanena has been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and is undergoing chemo treatments.  And of course, this means she needs to be able to pay for them, as well as medication, doctor visits, etc.  When you are a home caregiver, you don't usually have insurance, and even if you do, it's never enough to deal with something like this.

On behalf of Kanena and her daughter, I'm posting this link for donations to help her pay for her treatments.  If you would like to help and are able to do so, here is the link to her GoFundMe account, which will send the money directly to her:  http://www.gofundme.com/1kwes4

And if you would like to help but are unable to do so monetarily, please send prayers, healing energy, or anything else that you feel inspired to send her to help her get through this difficult time.

Thank you so much!  Mitakuye oyasin...  ("We are all related...")

June: "I'm SO Goth..."

Okay, this just takes the cake!!  Chocolate cake with black icing and raspberry filling, of course...  ;-)






Come to think of it, I remember once seeing a Halloween card that said:

Outside:  "I'm pregnant."
Inside:  "That's the scariest trick I know.  Happy Halloween!"